He readied his Glock as the first infected twigged that he was there, turned and came toward him. Stumbling steps across the bloody floor. It wore heavy work boots and overalls and looked to be an older male. Didn’t matter. The thing was infected and he would put it down.

He raised the pistol nice and calm. Only four, five meters from the target. Small chance he could miss. The weapon became an extension of him. He knew how to do this.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

The pistol bucked in his hand. Three bullets punched holes in the thing’s head, blowing out the back of its brains. Blood and bone fragments sprayed the two infected behind it. It dropped like the live, rotting sack of flesh and bones it was, dead for good this time. Inside the room the girl screamed louder, knocking a hole through the sound barrier. Hopefully her throat would give out soon. The nerve-rattling noise didn’t help anyone.

Nick walked toward the two remaining zombies. Their faces were gnarled and warped with hunger, stained with fresh blood.

Moaning started up behind him, bouncing off the cold, gray walls. It sounded close, far too f**king close. Shit. The other end of the corridor had appeared clear, but he’d missed some.

His back was wide open and exposed. The two in front of him shambled forward, one tripping on the freshly dead body on the floor and going down. It crashed at his feet with a groan. Raw, bloody fingers clawed at his boot. He stepped aside, balanced himself and brought his foot down on the thing’s head. It was an old woman, but it didn’t matter. No one came back from the virus. He stomped it, smashing his boot down, once, twice, three times to crush the thing’s skull. Brains spewed out across the floor amongst shards of white bone.

Behind him the moaning got louder. Another joined in. One started growling.

Eight. There had been eight left behind once he took Roslyn home. The girl screeching in the room beside him. The body downstairs, and the other corpse stinking like the bowels of hell by the bag rack to his right. The two at his feet, freshly dead. Leaving the three closing in on him.

The one Ros had punched lurched closer, navigating the bodies on the floor to get at him. It was the f**ker with the steel-rimmed glasses.

Nick ignored the two coming at him down the hallway. They were still a couple of body-lengths out. Hands outstretched, reaching for him. Shit, the smell of them filled his head. Smelt like death dug up.

The girl behind all the screaming stumbled out into the hallway, face red and dripping snot. Blonde hair hung in straggly knots about her face and blood stained her dress.

Janie. Roslyn had called her Janie.

“Help me!” she begged, running toward him. He stood surrounded by infected and the idiot girl flew at him, slipping and sliding in the gore on the floor. She fell to her knees, her chin cracking on the hard floor. Blood gushed out.

Steel-rimmed Glasses turned back to the girl with a roar of pure relish. It all happened fast, one f**k-up after another. It was insane. One of the handles on Ros’s handbag slid down his shoulder, restricting his movement. Hands down, it had to be his stupidest f**king idea ever to come after it. Like the woman would die without her lip balm or something. She was so getting a spanking for this, her fault or not. Her ass belonged to him.

Nick sucked in a breath through gritted teeth. Time to go home.

The gun was deafeningly loud. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

The back of Steel-rimmed Glasses’s head caved in, face exploding all over the floor. Never again would that thing bother Roslyn. Never.

Janie opened her bloodstained mouth and the sound that came out was mindless, barely human.

He aimed at the closest zombie staggering toward him. Its claw-like hand had gotten too close. No way did he want any of the infected’s body fluids near him. Nick’s boot landed in the thing’s groin and it toppled back, almost taking its friend with it.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

Chest shots. Its insides flew apart, intestines and f**k knew what else exposed. His hand shook as he switched targets. Why? Where was the calm? This was nothing he hadn’t done a hundred times since the plague had struck. He squeezed the trigger and nothing. Nada. Out of bullets.

“Fuck.”

The last one had crept too close. Nick slid his knife from the sheath on his belt. Good God, its breath—hot and foul, disgustingly humid.

He held up the knife and the bright silver blade buried itself in the thing’s throat, the zombie’s own forward momentum doing it in. Blood bubbled up and the thing gurgled, hands groping, reaching for him, hungry still. Nick pulled the blade free and the infected fell at his feet. There was a pool of blood down there. You could almost swim in it. His pistol lay in the center of the mess. He couldn’t even remember dropping it.

Janie waited on the floor, making a weird squeaking noise. His hand might have been shaking but she looked ready to fall apart, her shoulders jerking convulsively. Her face was a mess. Fuck, the sight of blood, the smell of it. It ran off the girl’s split chin. They were drowning in the stuff. She stared at him as if he was every bit as scary as the zombies.

The whites of her eyes were huge.

“A-are they all dead?” she croaked.

Too tired to speak, he just nodded. He squatted and wiped his blade on the pants of the nearest dead infected. The one with its throat sliced open. Ros’s handbag slid down his shoulder and he shoved its straps back up into place.

“Will you stay with me?” Janie asked. Her jittery fingers drew back the skirt of her dress, covered in dried blood. A big, messy wound covered the side of her thigh. A bite wound. Nick just stared. Nothing moved inside him. He felt hollow, all used up. This girl was dead. Living, breathing, talking, and yet already dead.